Serving up mystery, mince pies and murder
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| Murder After Christmas is a treat for cosy crime fans |
First
published in 1944, the little-known detective novel Murder After Christmas by
Rupert Latimer has finally been made available to today’s readers by being
published in the British Library Crime Classics series, and I found it an enjoyable
read in the cold days after Christmas this year.
A family
invite their rich old uncle to stay at their country house because, they joke, Mussolini
had made it impossible for him to visit his Italian villa at Christmas as usual.
He has written to them saying that his hotel in London has also been commandeered
because of the war.
There are humorous
remarks made about murdering the old man for his money by some members of the
household before his arrival and therefore it is not much of a surprise for the
reader when ‘good old Uncle Willie’, is found dead in the snow on Boxing Day
dressed as Santa Claus.
His hosts, the
Redpath family, appear to be kind-hearted people who had said before his
arrival that they would like to give the 90-year old a good time over Christmas
so that he might remember them in his will.
Other distant
relatives also take an interest in Uncle Willie and visit him at the Redpath’s
house in the run up to Christmas and send him parcels. Uncle Willie is known to
have a sweet tooth and he enjoys lots of mince pies and chocolates before
Christmas.
After his
body is found, the police suspect he has been poisoned and because he is found
dead during a Christmas party there are plenty of suspects for Superintendent
Culley to choose from as he carries out a complex and thorough murder investigation.
Rupert
Latimer tells the story in a light-hearted way, putting in plenty of seasonal
touches. Only one set of footprints in the snow lead to the body. Two people
are dressed as Santa Claus at the Boxing Day party to add to the confusion. And
why are a stash of mince pies found sewn up inside the seat of a chair in the
old man’s bedroom?
Unusually,
the Redpaths helpfully invite Superintendent Culley to stay with them in the
dead man’s room to see if he can take suspicion away from them by solving the
mystery.
Latimer was born at Wildernesse Park in Kent,
the home of his grandmother, Lady Hillingdon
Rupert Latimer was the pen name of Algernon Vernon Mills, who was born in 1905 at Wildernesse Park in Kent, the home of his grandmother, the Dowager Lady Hillingdon.
Despite his
privileged background, he had an unfortunate experience as a child during a
holiday in France. After eating some strawberries growing wild, he contracted
typhoid fever.
His elder
sister and their nurse both died, but although he survived, he was lame afterwards
and suffered from epilepsy.
As a young
man, he pursued a career on the stage, working in repertory, where he met the
playwright Arnold Ridley, who later became famous for his part in Dad’s Army.
Latimer also
wrote some humorous novels and the detective story Death in Real Life, but then
his health declined and he was diagnosed with a brain tumour and died in 1953.
It was to
take until 2022 for Murder After Christmas to be reissued by British Library
Crime Classics. I found it to be entertaining and well written with a satisfying
ending and it was a good distraction from my own left over mince pies!
